


rollin’ around

by Anonymous



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Lack of Communication, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 03:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18562591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “There’s a thousand things, really, that Brad has done wrong since they started dating, and he can’t really begrudge Patrice for picking a single one of them and deciding enough was enough.“





	rollin’ around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blindbatalex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/gifts).



> Title taken from Rollin’ Around by Nat and Alex Wolff which also kind of inspired this entire fic as well. I am actively working on something longer and different, but this popped into my brain and wouldn’t quiet down until it was done. It’s probably one of my more favorite things I’ve written. 
> 
> Dedicated to Alex for being lovely and kind and for always inspiring everything I write about these two.

It’s not that Brad hadn’t thought this wasn’t going to come eventually, he just thought he had more time. It makes sense though, and really all he wants is what’s best for Patrice. He just wishes that he could be what’s best.

They’d even had a date just a few nights ago. Brad had ordered in takeout from their favorite Italian spot (pasta with veal and broccoli for Brad, lemon chicken for Bergy). Patrice has a penchant for reality competition shows, so they’d been watching an old season of Top Chef. They’re both shit cooks, but it hasn’t stopped them from screaming at the television when a contestant failed to properly debone their fish. Maybe that was it- maybe Brad had been too aggressive, and Bergy just wanted some peace and quiet when he watched his shows now.

Or maybe it was how Brad had been so tired he’d fallen asleep on the couch leaving Bergy to clean up their dinner plates. Maybe it was how he’d woken up all cuddly and crawled on top of Bergy to tuck his head into his shoulder and go back to sleep. Maybe Patrice had wanted his space, maybe he’d wanted to go home, maybe Brad had been too heavy, maybe-

There’s a thousand things, really, that Brad has done wrong since they started dating, and he can’t really begrudge Patrice for picking a single one of them and deciding enough was enough.

.

Thursday night he’d asked Bergy if he wanted to hang out and get some dinner, but he’d gotten a “nah sorry, kinda busy babe” in return. And it’s not like Patrice never ever said no to a date, it’s just that normally he’d call and explain what he was up to and ask for a rain check. Which, it’s not that Brad needed all of that necessarily, he’d just grown kind of used to it.

In fact, all of Friday goes by without a single text from his boyfriend, but Brad tries to take it in stride. He sets his ringer to full volume and spends most of the day alternating couches to wallow on. It’s about 3 in the afternoon when the thought first occurs to him- Patrice is going to break up with him.

Brad pushes the thought away quickly at first. He opens a picture he has of the two of them cuddled up in bed and focuses on the way Bergy’s smile makes his eyes crinkle. Patrice isn’t going to break up with him, he loves him. He’d said so, and Bergy isn’t a liar.

At 6, Brad is heating up leftover pasta and the thought comes back. He pushes it away again, but it nags at his brain a bit longer, a twisting what if curling around his thoughts. He turns up the volume on the TV another couple notches to drown out his thinking.

At midnight, Brad hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep, and his phone hasn’t lit up all day. Patrice is going to break up with him, and Brad doesn’t know why.

By 4 a.m., Brad is alert again and has spent most of the night making a mental list of every reason Patrice would have to break up with him. It’s a lengthy list.

.

Brad doesn’t know when he finally fell asleep, but he wakes up after noon fitfully. Brad has resigned himself to the inevitable, and at this point, he’s ready to get the actual break up over with, so he can move on to the part with the ice cream and moping. It would have to be better than this feeling that a bomb is about to drop at any time.

He calls Patrice, and is half-surprised when he picks up.

“Brad, hey,” Bergy sounds out of breath.

“Hey, you working out?”

“No-no, no I’m not, I’m not, um no” and Brad can practically hear the anxiety in Bergy’s voice.

Then he hears it, an unrecognizable guy’s voice in the background, “Hey, where’d you go?”

Which- well. Brad had already known that Bergy was going to break up with him. But he hadn’t realized that Bergy might start having sex with other people before he’d done the actual break up part. He guesses it’s not cheating if the break up has already been planned.

“Listen, Bergy, can we meet up tonight?” Brad asks desperately, needing to get this over with.

“I’m actually busy tonight, can we do tomorrow?”

Brad wants to say no, wants to tell Bergy that he can go back to fucking that guy tomorrow, and could he please break up with him first.

Instead he says, “Yeah sure that’s fine,” and because he’s a masochist, “call me tonight though, yeah?”

“Yeah of course babe, of course. I’ll call tonight before I go to sleep,” Bergy promises.

Brad mumbles a noncommittal goodbye and hangs up as soon as he can.

.

Brad doesn’t know who the mystery guy is, but god he wants to. He’s sure that Patrice has told him about every fight they’ve ever had, and he’s sure the guy didn’t listen to a bit of it, and he’s even more sure that he took Patrice’s side in all of it.

He calls Zdeno out of desperation, thinking that he might know who the guy is.

“Patrice is going to break up with me, and he slept with someone else, but I don’t know who.”

Zdeno just breathes for a moment which is maybe fair, as Brad can admit that was kind of an abrupt way to greet someone.

“Brad. Patrice isn’t going to break up with you, and he didn’t sleep with anyone else.”

Brad protests, “No, look, I’m not mad at him. I mean- we all knew this was coming eventually, I just. I know he can do better, yeah? But this guy, whoever he is, if he’s the kind of guy who is cool stepping in on a relationship, then he’s not the kind of guy for Patrice. I’m sure he can find someone better.”

“Completely insane ideas aside, I think you’d be hard pressed to convince Bergy that there is anyone better for him than you. Just relax, Brad.”

Brad hangs up and promptly punches his bedroom wall hard enough that he immediately goes to the kitchen to get an ice pack. He’s already fucked up his relationship, it’d be best if he didn’t fuck up his career too.

.

Brad waits up for Bergy to call him. He’d promised, and he’d never known Bergy to break a promise to him before.

.

(There’s no call.)

.

Brad wakes up Saturday with swollen knuckles and a text on his phone.

“My place tonight for dinner at 8?” Patrice had sent an hour ago. No reference to the call that never came.

Brad sends back, “Sure.”

He spends the day going to three different grocery stores to stock up on different kinds of ice cream, and he buys some cream for his split knuckles while he’s out. He goes to the park and sits on a bench and stares off into space. He buys a new speaker and microwave meals and three new blankets, and gets some movies from Redbox- everything he’d need to hole himself up in his apartment for a week. He walks around the streets of Boston and feels like he doesn’t belong. Boston has always been Bergy’s town and when he’d been Bergy’s, he’d gotten part of it too. Now, he has no boyfriend and no city.

By the time it’s time to head to Patrice’s for dinner, his apartment is stocked up with break up supplies, and Brad has managed get his emotions under control enough that he’s pretty sure he can get though the night without crying (until he gets home at least). He pictures Bergy breaking up with him a thousand different way, so he can become numb to it.

He does take care to make sure he looks good, though. The sweatpants on his bed are ready for him when he comes home, but he gets dressed nice for Patrice one last time. For old time’s sake.

.

When he gets to Patrice’s apartment, the first thing he notices when the door opens is how clean it is. It’s not that it’s messy normally, but it’s not exactly clean either. It normally looks lived in, but now everything is in its perfect place. Brad is perplexed for a second until he remembers the mystery man, and his heart twists a little at the thought of Bergy taking such care to clean up his place for the guy.

Patrice kisses him immediately, but Brad pulls away quickly feeling bile rise in his stomach. Patrice doesn’t seem to notice, just smiles at him.

“I made dinner. I watched a video, and I think it came out pretty well.”

Patrice almost never cooks, and it’s so sweet and thoughtful of him and unbelievably Patrice that when he’s breaking up with someone, he tries to pamper them.

Brad just nods tightly, forcing a smile. He walks over to the table, sits down, and feels like a robot as he mechanically puts his napkin in his lap while Patrice serves up whatever kind of bean soup he made. Patrice had explained what it was, he’s pretty sure, but Brad hasn’t heard it over the ringing in his ears.

They eat, and Patrice is trying his best to make small talk. He talks about the next week’s training, and something silly Pasta had texted, and a dozen other things that Brad barely manages to follow along with. It’s when Patrice pulls out some cupcakes from the bakery up the street (Brad’s favorite) that Brad knows it’s finally coming.

“Listen, Brad, I’ve been thinking. We’ve been dating for a while now, and well-“

And Brad had told himself, had promised himself, that he wasn’t going to cry, but Patrice can’t even finish his sentence before Brad starts choking up so bad he starts to cough. It’s so much worse than he’d imagined. He feels sick to his stomach and the worst part is all he really wants is for Patrice to hold him through it. Brad stumbles away from his seat, leaning against the island and curling into himself.

He hears Patrice’s footsteps over to him before he feels his gentle fingers tilting his face towards him.

“Brad? What’s wrong?” Patrice asks, his eyes looking innocent and imploring and confused.

If Brad was in a better mood he’d laugh, but instead he just starts another bout of coughing, forcing himself to pull away from Patrice’s hand.

“Brad, babe, look at me,” Patrice says and he sounds worried.

Brad can’t help the words that pour from his mouth, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to crawl on you the other night or yell at the TV and I didn’t mean to always be so loud in the mornings or accidentally drool on your pillow or foul so much or be so sarcastic or anything else. I swear I didn’t mean to I’m so sorry, Patrice I’m so sorry.”

Patrice breathes out a startled, “What?” before Brad continues.

“And I didn’t mean to act like this tonight, I meant to be calm so this could be easier for you, but I fucked that up too just like I fuck up everything else.”

Patrice roughly grabs Brad’s face in his hands, “What are you talking about?”

“You’re breaking up with me, you’re breaking up with me for that mystery guy and he’s probably way better in bed than I am or at the very least he shuts up sometimes without you having to ask, and I get that all I do, and I didn’t mean to make such a scene, so please just do it.”

“I’m not- what mystery guy?”

“The guy from the phone, I heard him talking to you when you were all out of breath from fucking him.”

Patrice, to his credit, looks sick at the thought that Brad heard him, “From _what_? You think that I cheated on you?”

“Well, it’s not really cheating if you’ve already planned the breakup,” Brad explains helpfully.

“What- that doesn’t- I haven’t fucked anyone else. I haven’t cheated on you. I wasn’t planning on breaking up with you,” Patrice says, and he looks a mixture of hurt and confused.

“You can still break up with me even though I cried. You don’t have to like, pity me.”

“No, fuck, Brad. Brad. I don’t want to break up with you. Why do you think I want to break up with you?”

“When I asked you to hang out on Thursday, you said you were busy, but you didn’t call. Then Friday you didn’t text me all day, and Saturday I called you and you were all out of breath with some dude and you promised you’d call and you didn’t. You didn’t call, and then you brought me here and you’d cleaned up the place for your mystery dude and got my favorite cupcakes and well. It’s not like it wouldn’t make sense, really with all that I’ve put you through.”

Patrice’s face looks green, “I wasn’t- I didn’t- I. Fucked up. I totally forgot to call you last night, I’m so sorry babe, I was just really busy. Not busy cheating on you. I was busy- oh fuck it, just come look.”

And Patrice is pulling Brad to his bedroom and opening the door and-

It looks completely different from when Brad last saw it. The walls have been repainted to soft blue instead of the gray they were. There’s a second dresser next to Patrice’s. There’s pictures strung up on the wall of the two of them, sometimes with friends, sometimes not. There’s a framed picture of one of Brad’s favorite photos of Halifax hanging over the bed. The nightstand on Brad’s side of the bed has been decorated to have a picture of his family.

Brad turns to Patrice, open mouthed.

“I was going to ask you to move in with me. But I wanted to fix up the bedroom for you first. I cleaned everywhere, but I figured you could help me redecorate the rest of the place if you wanted. I just wanted to do this to show you that I really wanted you here with me, and that I wanted this to be your home too.”

Brad can’t breathe, and he’s crying again. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s overwhelmed with joy or just with feeling like an idiot.

Patrice continues, “I didn’t mean to go no contact, I was just busy trying to get it all together. And when you’d called the other day, we’d just gotten the extra dresser up the stairs, that’s why I was out of breath. The mystery guy you heard was my neighbor who’d helped me get it up here.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Patrice teases, mood a little lighter.

“Yes, I’d like to move in with you,” Brad says quietly.

Patrice smiles, pulling Brad into him, “I’m glad,” he says, then continues, “I’m sorry I didn’t call, but we maybe need to work on some of this overthinking thing you have. There’s no way in hell I’m breaking up with you babe, and you kinda jumped to a lot of conclusions pretty fast.”

“Maybe,” Brad agrees, still lost for words and a bit struck at the permanence Patrice just implied.

Patrice looks down at Brad and wipes away a few of the tears that had stuck on his face.

“Better?”

“Yeah, but. There’s like a lot of ice cream at my place that we’re going to have to move over here.”

Patrice lets out a fond laugh, pulling away, and Brad takes another second to look around the newly decorated bedroom- _their_ newly decorated bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> If you got the little homage to Alex’s piece “one hundred” that was in their takeout order at the beginning, I commend you. If not... go read it immediately. I hope you like this silly little fic even though the ending was kind of predictable! It made my heart full to write.


End file.
